The difference only seems to be that it is a dog, not a pig, cow, chicken, frog, snake, turtle, lobsters or shrimp (my gosh, those poor things are dropped alive into boiling water).
We don't mistreat and torture animals before slaughtering them. Cattle aren't hung upside down and slowly tortured to death to make the meat tastier, or to improve it's effects on virility. The torture of these animals is what is indefensible. No matter how you look at it, this is just plain wrong.